


I am the Dragonborn

by Ooft



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:07:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24904309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ooft/pseuds/Ooft
Summary: Dragon Souls impact everyone differently. Whether they are heavy or painful or powerful, carrying them is no simple feat. These Dragonborns are all too aware of the fact, and tell of their experiences regarding the Souls they carry.
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a concept I was curious to explore. Hope you find it as interesting as I do!

I am the Dragonborn and this is my pain. 

Every time I take a Soul, it feels as though I am going to be ripped apart, like any breath could be my last. 

I was only a young lad when I took my first Soul, and I remember the way my mother looked at me after. She'd shaken her head and run to me, grabbing me before I could fall over and dutifully wiping away my tears. 

"Don't let your father see you weep," she murmured, "this is an honour to the family." 

He did see me weeping, but didn't mention it at the time. No, he'd pulled me in close for a hug and then lifted me onto his shoulders, parading me around proudly and exclaiming lies about loving me, or something to that effect. Yes, his young son, slaying a dragon all by himself! What an achievement, and certainly not a display of negligent parenting, forcing a child into the wild by himself and having him fight a huge beast to the death. 

That night, my father showed me what he really thought of my weeping. The day after that he told me that I couldn't leave the house due to all the bruises on my arms. Some parental love, eh? 

I was in my early teens when I slayed my second dragon, but this time it was in the middle of town. Now when the body turned flakey and I absorbed the Soul, I had spectators, and they were more than happy to tell me I wasn't any average dragon slayer; I was a Dragonborn, a distant legend among Nord people. Many men had grumbled at the sight, muttering something about a ‘halfer Breton boy’ taking away their right to the Nord glory of dragon-hunting. I was sent away by the Jarl to study the Thu'um in High Hrothgar with the Greybeards.

High Hrothgar was… not what I expected, to say the least. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting from a group named the Greybeards, but I must admit that I didn't think they'd just be a group of old men (even if that was the most obvious connotation). They taught me the way of the Thu'um, but after a year I grew weary of their teachings and left them. 

The world was wide, but my thirst for exploration was wider. I spent years travelling between the different Holds and making a name for myself across the land as the Dragonborn, of course, but also as an adventurer and retriever of goods, a kind and just person with a strong will, a man with a keen sense of good, and… well, as a lover. 

Oh yes, when I’ve stayed at inns I’ve heard many tales of myself and what I’ll do behind closed doors. Most of them are complete and utter lies, though that’s entirely expected, given the way drunken idiots speak to one another, let alone their attempts to remember things with those atrocious memories of theirs. So I’ve heard many things, most of them untrue, though a few proving surprisingly correct. That’s to be expected, given the rough patch I had for a few years in which I had incessantly slept with many random men, but to think they knew it in such detail despite their drunkenness… I must say that due to that, I’ve become much more cautious of my relationships in the past few years, not even going near anyone for quite a while, isolating myself in the woods and hunting. 

Apparently my reputation as a lover is very much the focus of the people, but I still prefer my own ideals as a man who is simply a hero. I’m not really, if I’m being honest with myself, but like I said: my own _ideals_. Unrealistic beliefs of myself. I could never be a hero! I’m still down at my very heart of hearts the lost and abused little boy from Windhelm who could never lift a finger against a threat and cried at the very thought of ending another life. 

Perhaps that’s why I wake up in agony every morning. The term ‘agony’ makes it all sound very dramatic, but there’s really no other way to describe it. To think it’s just a physical pain is laughable, given the emotional drag of it all and the torment pulling deep in my gut, a twisted feeling worsened by a tenfold when the pure, horrific pain of it all is mixed in. 

I’d be a weak man to say the physical pain was the worst of it. Then again, I’m weak to say any of it’s bad, really. 

When most men say ‘my father taught me that…’, it means they have some wise lesson to impart on their listener. When I say it, it serves as a strong warning, given how much of a fool my father is. I suppose I’m the bigger fool for still believing him after all these years, even despite knowing none of what he said was right. That’s the mind of the abused. The mind of a poor, weak and lonely child, subjected to harsh beatings and even harsher ones when his mother was involved, a soft and often sickly woman who seemed barely older than a girl. All those years, taking the beatings for her when dinner was overcooked, or when a shirt hadn’t been patched correctly, or when the dog hadn’t been fed enough, or for the million other tiny little mistakes that could be made on a daily basis. I was beaten for all of it. 

I don’t regret a damn one. 

At least, not in the context of taking the beating for her. Everytime I didn’t stand-up for myself was regrettable, but I never had a choice in the matter and I tried, believe me. Tried and failed too many times to count, so I gave up and took it all on the chin. 

I like to think I learnt how to avoid angering my father and that stopped him from beating me, but the more I think about it, the more I come to realise: he didn’t beat me less. He beat me the same, maybe more even, and I just grew up, got better at handling the blows, bouncing back, patching myself up and working even harder to protect my mother. 

That's all in the past now. A past full of normal pain, physical and nothing more. Now because of my constant agonies, I struggle to cast basic Restoration spells and all my Destruction is violently overpowered and out of control, forcing me to be healed by someone else and to use normal weapons, sometimes even ones without enchantments due to the effect being unpredictable. 

Of course, there are also those patches of time in my life I lived with the Companions, undertaking contracts with them, growing up alongside them. Those were good parts of my childhood, spent away from my father and learning to fight the way an honourable warrior does. There were times when my Breton blood got a little in the way, forcing me to fight off the urge to use magic, but I got through all the training and became a menace to bandits. 

I went to the College of Winterhold when my magic-use first started getting out of hand (quite literally). I had absolutely no control over the sparks of flame escaping my fingertips, accidentally setting more than my fair share of forest fires when in a panic. I considered going back to tell them how my magic has changed drastically after my recent dragon slaughter, but I think they'd come to the same conclusion I have: the more pain I go through with these dragon Souls, the more erratic my emotional state and magic will become. A vicious cycle, of sorts. Dragon Soul absorbed, pain increases, emotional stress becomes overwhelming, magic becomes harder to control, rinse, repeat. 

I deserve everything that's coming to me. Every time I can't breathe or move or talk, I deserve it. 

I wish I didn't. 

So I woke up every morning (after already waking up several times during the night) and would go about my day, ignoring the aching of my body, talking and laughing with the rest of them in hopes they'll never pay me close attention. 

That happened for a long time, until I decided to leave my home in Riften and move across the country to Markarth, buying a home there named Vlindrel Hall. I remember stepping in and forgetting how to breathe for a moment, taken aback by how large and beautiful it was for a price so low. I'd had half a mind to go back and tell the Jarl's steward he'd undercharged me, but I figured he'd take me for a fool if I did that. 

I went to bed after I was satisfied with my exploration of the house, hoping to get a good night's sleep. My hopes were in vain, as I woke up just after midnight with a searing pain in my chest and unable to breathe. I remember stumbling out of bed and into the kitchen, hastily pouring myself a glass of water and gulping it down, praying to the gods it would calm my nerves. 

"You're the new Thane, right?" A deep voice came from behind me, and I remember the way my heart seemed to drop to my feet. 

My hands had sparked with flames as I turned around. "Who are you?" 

"I'm your housecarl." It was a large blonde man sitting at the dining room table, a blade and a cleaning cloth in his hands. A Nord, by the looks. 

A housecarl, of course. I hadn't even questioned his whereabouts when I first arrived, the idea of it completely escaping me. I asked him to forgive me for my hostility, but he waved me off and said he should have arrived sooner, rather than showing up in the middle of the night. 

We became close, him and I. Over the months we developed a strong companionship, and then a little more. It didn't really feel like anything changed, though, which is how I knew loving him would be different to the other men I've been with. 

He was different to them because he was _aware_. It was as if he had a sixth sense for picking up on my feelings and he reacted accordingly. Every time I woke up in the night and got out of bed, he'd come padding out of the room a few minutes later, checking on me and muttering something about being cold without me, then hold me and kiss me and take me back to bed with him, constantly asking if I needed anything. When my magic sparked he'd rest a reassuring hand on my shoulder, stepping forward to take care of the situation for me. When I was quiet and sad he'd sit beside me and tell me stories about his adventures, or tales his father would tell him as a lad. Sometimes those stories made me feel a little worse, but he always seemed to realise when he'd gone too far, pulling me into his lap and murmuring an apology, before coming up with a different story to tell. 

Love is an incredible thing and I wish I'd experienced it like this sooner. Maybe I wouldn't feel like such a lost cause if I had. 

Even with a lover by my side, however, the Souls pain me. Old scars that never heal, I suppose. A punishment that will never be enough. 

I deserve it. Every bit. 

I am the Dragonborn and this is my pain. 


	2. Chapter 2

I am the Dragonborn and this is my burden.

The first time I took a dragon's Soul, it was as if I was going to fall, crippled beneath its weight. I spent days simply lying on the ground beside its oversized body, barely able to lift an arm and take a drink of water or a bite of bread. 

My whole body had simply felt dead. Not sore, or swollen, just… limp and dead. My limbs seemed pinned to the ground and it was difficult to breathe. 

Eventually, I was discovered by a group of adventurers wandering the land. They gave me burn-cream for my sun-scorched skin and wrapped all the cuts and wounds I had received from the dragon's claws. 

I soon realised my favourite sword had broken in the battle against the dragon. I cried that night for the first time in years. The adventurers weren't sure what to make of me in that time; a male Altmer, suffering from the effects of dragon wounds and weeping over a broken sword. 

Of course, I wasn't crying over the sword. It simply served as a… push. No, I was crying over many things that night, half of which I can't remember now. 

I travelled with the adventurers for some years, but stopped when I took my second dragon Soul. Again, I was rendered a cripple and spent days searching for some long-forgotten strength. 

It was a painful time. I wept again. 

As the years wore on, I collected more Souls and grew in strength. The days in which I was over encumbered changed to hours, which later became minutes. I now only wait but a few moments before I rise again. 

One time, when I travelled near Markarth, I met a strange man along the road. He was a lonesome rider, delivering courier packages to every Reach in Skyrim. I wondered if perhaps he could direct me to the nearest inn, but he told me not to worry, to drink with him instead. He would make much better company than a few drunkards, anyhow, so I stayed awhile and listened as he told me of tall tales about beautiful maidens and magic and such. 

I hadn't been listening to him very carefully, but I remember when the word "Dragonborn" slipped out of his lips and fell to the ground, as if landing there with an almighty crash. He revealed he was of such making and had come upon the knowledge when he was but a child. I asked him what it felt like to carry a dragon's Soul, careful to not reveal my own identity, and he told me carrying the Souls was similar to waking from death each morn. 

I asked him how he carried on. 

The answer I got was certainly not what I was expecting. 

An island off the south coast of Valenwood had a small population of Hargravens. The man travelled there on a whim, encouraged by the whisperings of strangers and a unique opportunity. 

He made haste and got there within a few short days, finding everything he'd been told to be perfectly, utterly true. Hundreds of Hargravens, living in peace and harmony, who offered to host him and to aid him in achieving his desires. When told he wanted to have all the dragon Souls he carried to be removed… well, the witches could only comply. 

I asked what the catch was. What price he had to pay for such a brilliant thing. He told me the truth: there was no catch. The Hargravens were simply obliged to help anyone who came to them in need. Perhaps a code of honour among them, but it didn't matter a lick. No matter what, an aid was an aid, especially for a traveller in bandit-ridden Skyrim. 

A few more days was all I could afford to spend with the strange man and then I was off again, but, instead of seeking treasure or gold, I was seeking solace, an escape from my miserable reality. 

I travelled to Valenwood in the south, demanding a boat and a crew to take me to the island of Hargravens. I was laughed at and told there was no such thing, that there never had been, that anyone who said otherwise was simply a liar. The man I’d spoken too must have been positively mad, they said. 

I refused to believe it, insisting on taking a crew out to sea and finding out for myself. They all laughed, but agreed, readying a ship of brave men with hearts yearning for adventure. 

I wish I’d listened to the people of Valenwood. 

The first night out on the vast, open sea, we were assaulted by a raging storm, the wind throwing us about and sloshing us through the waves violently, like a horse rearing its head. The second night a great and terrible beast rose from the waters and wrapped its tentacles around the ship. It was a long, frightful battle, but one of my men managed to drive his sword into the monster’s eye and kill it. The third night out, another storm, and men died, and it repeated, over and over and over, we were lost, seeking something that had never been there in the first place. 

There is always a price to pay for our sins. Mine was death and destruction, a punishment for trying to escape my fate as Dragonborn. 

Now, I lay on my deathbed of water. The screams of my men echo around me, but I know they aren’t really there. They died many, long, agonising hours ago, never to see their families or loved ones again. 

I suppose this is my time now. As I drift off into a long slumber, I let my body become still. The Souls inside me stir and wail, but I ignore them and give in to the rising water around me, letting it swallow me whole and drag me down, forcing me to sink as though the Souls had become heavy again, pulling me further and further, drifting deeper down into the belly of the world, never to lay eyes on the surface again, or the grass, the trees, the animals and the sun. 

A price has been paid. Now I may rest forever, without fear of carrying another Soul. 

I was the Dragonborn, and this was my burden. 


End file.
